This week I’m revisiting One Planet Developments. The system, unique to Wales, that allows people to buy a plot of land, build a house, exempt from normal planning regulations, and pretend to be farmers.
Of course, once you’ve erected your house you have a dwelling in open country for which you would never have received planning permission through the normal channels. And which can then be sold for a massive profit.
Not only is the OPD system an affront to planning laws, an insult to local people, but its very premise is nonsense. For this legislation was justified as “reducing Wales’ carbon footprint”. Yet it actually increases our carbon footprint.
For it attracts people into Wales who keep farting animals, drive old diesel vehicles, and have wood-burning stoves. With these now living on land that was previously unused.
♦
LIVING OFF THE (FAT OF THE) LAND
This latest piece was prompted by news reaching me from north Pembrokeshire that someone was looking to buy a farm (or may has already bought one) to be split into One Planet Development plots.
The development is near the village of Mynachlog-ddu. Which explains what you see below. It was sent to me and I assume it’s a Facebook entry.
My source was upset by a number of things; not least, the suggestion that another Welsh name was to be lost.
But the way it’s explained in the image above, by project mastermind, Wade William Heames, makes no sense. The village itself is Mynachlog-ddu (‘Black Monastery’), there is no farm of that name.
The farm that’s been identified to me is Caermeini Ganol, just outside the village, on the Crymych road. Below you see, on the left, a plan put out by Heames; and on the right, an OS map on which I’ve coloured in the land in question.
Here’s the sales guff from Savills.
There was a Crowdfunder appeal in the name of The Edible Forest that claimed to have raised (or been promised) £650,000. But there’s no update after April 2019. Which I suppose might be explained by the appeal having reached its target.
Scroll down to the bottom and alongside Heames (‘MIQ’?) you’ll see the name ‘Rosie Maunder’. I believe this to be her. An abandoned Twitter account tells us Rosie is / was a Human Geographer at Cardiff Uni (where else?) with an interest in . . . rewilding.
But nowhere in the appeal do I see a location given for this fund-raising. Was it a case of, “Give us the money and we’ll find the land”?
What I do know is that there was a company called The Edible Forest CIC. But it wasn’t formed until five months after the last update on the fundraiser of the same name; it filed no accounts, and was voluntarily dissolved on St David’s Day 2022.
Here’s the Facebook page. We’ll return to it in a minute.
And then there’s the name, ‘The Edible Forest’, which seems to be quite popular. I found it in Australia. Also in England. In fact, the term, ‘edible forest’, seems to be in common usage in environmental and vegan circles.
But I still don’t understand why the name was being used to raise money before the company of that name was even formed. And why fundraising ceased before the company was formed.
That seems to be a problem with Wade William Heames. Companies come and go, there’s a vagueness about what’s being purchased, we find multiple social media accounts, and commercial entities mentioned that seem devoid of corporate substance.
Such as . . .
A short-lived, one-man band, Food For Wales Ltd. Launched 12 May, 2020, Dissolved 18 October, 2022. What was its purpose? The SIC says, ‘Retail sale of fruit and vegetables in specialised stores’. So what happened?
There was also a Crowdfunder appeal for this company. Maybe it didn’t raise enough money?
It’s a strange business model. Set up a company, in which you own all the shares, and then ask for donations. Though I can see the advantages!
Someone following developments has suggested that the company actually buying land and then selling it off in parcels is Heames Ltd. A suggestion supported by the fact that nine new directors joined this company in recent months. Would these be investors?
To go back to social media for a minute. Here is Heames’ Linkedin page. But if you go to the column on the right you’ll see three other Wade Heames Linkedin pages. Which he seems to have started, and then perhaps forgotten about.
One, is for Jean Lamour Pest Control, another for Jean Lamour Environmental Services. Are these real companies, or just flights of fancy? There’s certainly nothing registered with Companies House under ‘Jean Lamour’.
Though Googling ‘Jean Lamour’, brought up a restaurant in the French city of Nancy. And it seems Heames was there in 2010, according to ‘Life events’ on this, yet another, FB page.
Is a French restauranteur branching out into catching rats and ‘roaches, with Wade William Heames his local agent? Or is it just a bit of harmless whimsy on Heames’ part?
Another imaginary entity might be Unleash The Drones. What the hell is that about?
It’s all very confusing, and might make it tempting to dismiss Wade Heames as a bit of a fantasist . . . if it wasn’t for the fact that one of his projects appears to be taking off. Though this is not in Mynachlog-ddu, but in Pontypridd.
To be exact, Lan farm, off Graigwen Road. (Or maybe it’s just the land.) Which he calls ‘Graigwen Farm’. Here’s the estate agent’s puff.
Read more about it as we make the promised return to the Edible Forest Facebook page. You’ll recall that the company of that name was Dissolved almost a year ago. Yet in this recent FB entry Heames promises riches beyond the dreams of avarice.
And it attracted many unkind comments. When asked to justify the extravagant claims, and valuations, Heames’ response could be interpreted as suggesting using OPD legislation to greatly increase the value of the original purchase with a house in open country for which planning permission would almost certainly have been refused without employing the OPD angle.
I referred just now to a rather confusing number of companies, and there seem to be intriguing women involved. You’ll remember that we saw ‘rewilder’ Rosie Maunder with the Crowdfunder appeal that claimed to have raised £650,000.
The person with significant control over The Edible Forest CIC before Heames returned to the helm was Italian Giulia Pacciotti. This lady has also exercised significant control over Heames Ltd.
Now there’s a company called Heames II Ltd. The company address is 117 Llangrannog Road, Llanishen. (The one that’s ‘rewilding’ the front garden.) Set up in February 2021, yet Wade Heames is not listed as a director. The only director is Czech citizen Vera Schweitzerova. Ms Schweitzerova is also a director of Heames Ltd.
Heames II is obviously a Wade Heames company, so where is he?
Almost every angle of investigation runs up against more questions or dead-ends. And causes for concern.
Another example is a recent entry on the Edible Forest Facebook page (January 6) suggesting that Wade Heames now intends applying to the Development Bank of Wales (DBW) for funding.
My understanding has always been that the DBW funds businesses that will create employment and generate wealth within Welsh communities. Surely OPD plots don’t qualify? And anyway, aren’t Heames’ projects self-financing?
Does the DBW do bridging loans?
◊
CONCLUSION
The way OPD was sold to us by Jane Davidson and others suggested it would attract relics of the Swinging Sixties, who’d buy a couple of acres of unproductive land from a Welsh farmer, and live out their twilight years in a fug of marijuana smoke and joss sticks.
All set out in the so-called ‘Welsh Government’s Technical Advice Note (TAN) 6.
The reality soon proved to be very different. Here are some examples I’ve encountered in recent years.
There’s the cult-like commune with an authoritarian leader and its own temple. (Though the planning permission was for ‘a dwellinghouse’.) The leader’s wife’s got a nice line in £185 a head ‘Day Retreat of Powerful Transformation’.
How much time is actually spent tending the organic kumquat?
Then there’s OPDs that are just used on weekends. This is unlawful by the OPD rules laid down by the ‘Welsh Government’. Yet this is what I found at Rhiw Las.
There was a couple there with the husband working in the Met Office in Bristol, while his wife was a Fellow at the LSE.
There have been other examples where both the spirit and the word of the OPD legislation has been flouted by people who soon after first contact realised that Welsh politicians would paint their arses green and chase each other around wind turbines to prove their environmental credentials.
(Try not to visualise that!)
Yet perhaps the most egregious flouting of the legislation comes in examples that are very often never registered as OPDs.
I’m thinking now of unscrupulous, sometimes criminal, operators, who buy sections of woodland and sell them off in plots for people to live on, in trailer homes or chalets: “They can’t touch you, pal – if the council comes snooping, just say ‘OPD'”.
This practice very often follows planning permission secured for a ‘forestry road’.
The images above show chalets and trailer homes at ‘Coedfryn Woods’, near Llangynog, Carmarthenshire. None of the properties shown had planning permission when the images were sent to me in early January last year.
The council, however, showed little appetite for getting involved.
I’m aware of forest squatting elsewhere. Meidrim, in north Carmarthenshire, for example. And while most residents of these plots will never apply for official OPD status, they will try to hide behind the legislation when challenged.
Secure in the knowledge that local authorities are reluctant to instigate proceedings because OPD planning consent is assured. So both parties save time and money by accepting these unofficial OPDs as the real deal.
And how could I overlook the ‘farmlets’ in Killay, on the western outskirts of Swansea. Read about them here, just scroll down to the section ‘Back to Gower’. (Though the whole article is worth reading.)
And now we have Wade William Heames and his plans for OPD collectives in Pontypridd and Mynachlog-ddu. All funded by others, including, he hopes, The Development Bank of Wales!
It begins to look like big business. And a wee bit shady. One source described it: “Buy for £5k an acre and sell for 10” (or more). If this is really what it’s come to, then we’re a long way from the old hippy looking for isolation and contentment in his declining years.
There are few Welsh people interested in OPDs, and northern Wales seems to have escaped the plague. This is explained because even Pembrokeshire has good access, via the A48 and M4, to southern England, where OPD-lovers originate.
And so, for the reasons given here (and elsewhere), I urge an end to this failed experiment that invites abuse. And which, like too much of the legislation from Corruption Bay, serves the agendas of others, offering nothing to Wales, or to Welsh people.
♦ end ♦
I was offered land for sale by Wade.
can you give me advice please ?
Hang onto your money!
Yeah, this reeks of a personal attack on someone who is doing something you don’t like Jac. You poo-poo veganism, OPDs, socialism and even the Welsh Government. What do you like? Do you have an allotment? Do you enjoy eating processed food?
You have missed out the farm above Llanfair Clydogau, Lampeter that Wade William Heames has bought in the last year or so for £900k after the owner’s bank foreclosed. He is trying to sell it off as small plots at £10k per acre (dairy land prices), despite it being upland marginal land and pretty much all habitat, which cannot be used more intensively without EIA Agriculture (Wales) Regulations screening permission.
He has no proper legal access to this land, and the neighbours are preventing access as they know what he’s up to and are supporting the unfortunate previous owner. His facebook page was advertising for ‘Travellers to come and set up camp’ and sit on the access tracks to prevent the locals using their rightful access.
I have screenshots of his posts and I, and others, have reported the situation to the local parish council, Carmarthenshire CC and Welsh Government.
Basically, he’s buying marginal land which is often priority habitat cheaply and selling to folks from the city who have absolutely no idea about the suitability of the land for agricultural use, let alone the legal restrictions they will have to go through. EIA Agriculture regulations for land improvement projects are pretty solid in Wales.
I don’t think I was aware of the Llanfair Clydogau site when I wrote that piece. I have since been informed, and so thanks for your input.
Interesting that you mention the land at Meidrim. Planning permission has been re-applied for an OPD (having been rejected 1st time round). Planning Ref PL/05021 with Carms CC if anyone wants a good yarn (objections welcome). This is land used by Otters, migrating Canada Geese, badger spotted recently, bats, and forms part of an ancient woodland. Oh and part of the site floods. The application is full of errors, outright lies and conflicting ‘data’. The adjacent woodland (separate landowners) has been split into plots, cleared, and dwellings put up that would be considered uninhabitable in a shanty town – all of which the council is aware of but refuses to take any action on.
Objections have to be in by Tuesday 25th April Planning Application 05021
http://thepeoplesflag.blogspot.com/2023/03/opinion-polling-for-february-2023.html
Are you a Welshman who’s moved to Yorkshire or simply a Cymruphile? ????
FYI the four extra question marks and the sort of accusative mood they convey are not my doing, I actually put a smiley face emoji after the first one which has been replaced by them.
Originally from Colwyn Bay, moved from Anglesey (Holyhead) in late 2019 to East Riding for wife’s family reasons.
Good place Hull. Clive Sullivan is regarded as god-like up there. Could do with some of his calibre playing in South Wales right now instead of the sensitive souls that crop up too frequently.
CRISES & THREATS & EMERGENCIES
Real and Imagined and Engineered.
History keeps repeating itself.
Wars and Invasions and Empires.
Slavery and Plagues and Famines.
and more recently scaremongering.
Nuclear War and Reds under our Beds.
Ice Ages in the sixties caused by Aerosols and Ozone Layers.
Acid rains and Fission Fallouts.
Asteroid Collisions and Aliens.
Freak isolated weather incidents as becoming the claimed new norm.
Climate Change and Ocean Levels Rising and Floods deluges.
Carbon Emissions and Cars and Diesel engines.
The word ‘Carbon’.
Cars and excess Traffic Deaths bring 20mph Speed Limits and bicycles.
Incidents and accidents.
Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson and Greta Thumberg and Trump and Putin.
Pandemics and any Chinese Flu.
Drug Addiction and Excess Alcohol.
Wales Senedd Government’s petty fringe Scaremongering.
Rewilding and Renewables and Meat Eating and Farmers.
Multitudes of Sexuality Genders.
Tik Tok and Dark Web and Scary Movies
People like to be scared and are scared and bogy Politicians love to scare.
Adrenalin from scary fear is junky addictive we love it in our veins.
We are scared! We were Welsh. I need a fix!
Nice summary. I didn’t realise that I’d failed to be scared by so much crap in my lifetime. There again many of the people I mix with on a casual basis have been influenced by most of those daft ishoos that have cropped up over last 20 years or so. Do you think something “odd” happened around Y2K and I missed out on that too? Or is it my old rhino skin?
Jac you are on the verge of posting a new BLOG POST so I will squeeze this in as it will not detract now from your great exposure on the “OPD SCAM” and the great debate it initiated . So here goes :-
DATAMAPWALES
Pre-Assessed Areas (PAAs) favoured areas for future plantations of Wind Turbines are dotted around most scenic upland open areas of Wales. Those near my home locality include – what’s left of Mynydd y Gwair and Mynydd y Baran and Mynydd Gwrhyd and Mynydd March Hywel. They are all over Wales and will be looked at with greed by businesses like RWE and Bute Energy etc.. The Labour Ministers at Wales Government, and their Butties in Plaid Cymru, are all in favour of this due to their deluded beliefs they can transform little Wales to become a global world leader in stopping climate change.
Yet in answer to a Freedom of Information Question this week the Wales Government says Onshore Wind Turbines are only 23% effective of the Capacity (maximum) as always quoted and similarly Solar Complexes are only 10% effective of the Capacity (maximum) as always quoted by Developers and Politicians and as swallowed by the Press and Media who simply reprint handouts they are given. Nobody is asking valid questions. Please question your Politicians if they are so deluded. You have FIVE Senedd Members and one MP and Councillor(s).
Study what’s below – especially the contents of the LINK :-
Strategic Search Areas (SSAs) for Wind Turbines now known as Pre-Assessed Areas PAAs.
TAN 8 and its associated SSAs have been revoked and replaced by Future Wales policy 17 and Pre-Assessed Areas (PAAs). The DatamapWales maps replaced TAN8 with Pre-Assessed Areas PAAs.
Pre-Assessed Areas can be viewed on DatamapWales by following the link below.
Policy 17 – Pre-assessed areas for wind energy | DataMapWales (gov.wales)
Good points. Everybody should be aware of the difference between claimed output and reality.
Illusions and fantasy are staple diets in the Bay. Hard facts are dismissed as racist, fascist, homophobic, climate denying, etc etc or with a combination of jargon old and new composed by approved thought leaders of the nouveau radical chic pseudo left.
No wonder the country is going down the pan sharpish
P.S Just noticed a tweet from D.E Thomas quoting Guardian 20 years ago.
“European cities will be plunged beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a Siberian climate by 2020.” Guardian 2004
Shame it never happened as much of the garbage now infecting our political, social and economic fabric originates among the Metropolitan pseudo intellectual cliques who have too much time to dream up crap. Sending them out into the fields for a spot of hard work would never work as a remedy.
There are hundreds if not thousands of these predictions from previous decades. And all of them were wrong. In terms of climate, the world today is little different to what it was 50 years ago. But the truth doesn’t serve the scaremongers’ agenda.
The do-gooders’ do-gooding is where good ideas go to die. An imbecile can see that pumping shit from factory chimneys and car exhaust pipes into the air we breathe is never going to end well. Furthermore, any decent human being can’t but back gay rights. The problem comes, and probably inevitably so, given the idiocies of human nature, when good ideas are seized upon, and politicised by lunatics.
Jac in a tweet late yesterday you said – “To be perfectly frank, I’m getting so many stories coming in, from so many different directions, that I just can’t keep up.
And because they all paint such a bloody awful picture of contemporary Wales it’s really depressing.” Too true!
To make matters worse for you, you then proceed to research some of these stories further and as you dig deeper it gets worse ! Even at the shallow end where I tend to hover I get really shirty when I see the crap indulged in by people in government at all senior levels in local and Bay Bubble levels. Add to that the evident carpetbagging of those who claim to be entrepreneurs but are really nothing more than financial vultures having a good old peck at government funds and assets at knock down prices. The recent example of that pompous tart getting free use of a £4.25 million farm is just the top of the pile for the time being as no doubt some wide boy will clean them out for a lot more over the next few months. Loads of farmers in this country could have put those fields at Gilestone to much better productive use.
Adam Price is desperate to appease a few of his voters who do not want 65 ft tall Electric Pylons near their houses, so he wants the cables underground. Yet he could not care less about the 820 ft Wind Turbines that will destroy Wales outside of his constituency to erratically feed these Pylons. The message should be :-
No monster wind Turbines = No modest Pylons.
Here is Adam Price at a Llandovery Public Meeting playing to the gallery :-
https://www.facebook.com/LoveLlandovery/videos/1582282588958193/
Adam Price has never asked why the currently favoured type of large scale gigantic turbine array is preferred over other options. Some 20 years ago I saw a design for entirely different wind turbine which could be integrated into the top tier of high rise buildings. Elsewhere we read of cladding with photovoltaic membranes built onto the external facades of office blocks, factory buildings and some style of homes. What has happened in reality is that the gigantic turbine lobby has secured the backing of government decision makers leaving Marine turbines and the other options mentioned above to occupy a small minority space. Price and his fellow playmates at the Bay Bubble have gone along with this scam. We need to know what rewards they received and how much.
Personally I’d feed that underground cable up his arse. He might enjoy the first 6 inches or so but after that he’d be rightly alarmed.
I am confident that the good people of Dyffryn Tywi understand the connection between turbines and pylons even if most politicians don’t. Cefin Cambell is Regional Senedd Member for Mid and West Wales – including the proposed Nant Mithil Industrial Turbine Site. Plaid’s unconditional acceptance of Future Wales Plan 2040 and Plaid’s lack of scrutiny is at best naive, at worst colluding with the large scale exploitation of its rural strongholds by external developers – to England’s advantage.
These Towy Valley voters have swallowed it all from Adam Price crook line and pinky. The man’s a hypocrite and does not come up to Gwynfor Evans or Dafydd Wigley’s ankles in calibre of sincerity. All of his Party do not come up to the dreams we once had for Wales. They are Mark Drakeford’s lap dog pet poodles not even Corgis lapping Royalty . It’s the same with the Plaid / Independents trying to rundown the Port Talbot Steel’s Blast Furnaces into closure and cover Afan Valley with giant Turbines all to lick up to Labour and the Greens but sod the real steelworkers and valley residents.
Well said Non. Your analysis spot on.
This site contrived to make me even more irritable and nasty overnight. As if being reminded twice by one commenter a few days ago of the existence of Ms Davidson is not enough, you then stimulate even more bile by repeating a WOL article about the fragrant Sophie, she who stinks of entitlement and superiority. That bitch has spent millions and created nothing by way of added value yet she’s been moved on to greener pastures ( geddit?) as a “reward” for her efforts. Then I caught sight of Aled Job’s comment about the long running sore about sub postmasters. Why hasn’t anyone who was a high ranking office holder at Post Office when those vicious unjustified decisions were taken been held to account in a court of law? Why hasn’t any member of successor management teams been held to account for rigidly defending the original crime against innocent people? Some of those cnuts have now gone on to bigger things – pillars of an increasingly corrupt, entitled and insulated elite. Nothing will change until loads of these perverts and deviants get taken down, jailed and lose the pensions and other perks of office accumulated over years of mailicious management. And all because they could not bear to admit they had commissioned a dud of an I.T system.
So, duds all round. Davidson, Howe and a collective of high ranking past and current P.O executives. Is that enough for this weekend?
Yes, as through this world I’ve wandered
I’ve seen lots of funny men;
Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen.
And as through your life you travel,
Yes, as through your life you roam,
You won’t never see an outlaw
Drive a family from their home.
The Ballad Of Pretty Boy Floyd
Woody Guthrie
I’ve got it on the Library of Congress box set in which he’s interviewed by Alan Lomax. Obviously, I don’t agree with Woody’s politics, but I still like the music.
About what do you disagree?
Woody was a socialist, probably a Communist. Obviously, I am not.
This excellent BLOG item on One Planet is now slowing down with its comments as all will after a while. So now must be the opportune time for the myriad of Jac’s Commentators to get their teeth into openly ridiculing Dame Edna Mitty PhD, the original birth mother of the One Planet system, with emphasis on her claimed ‘Research Doctorate’ and of the high places she has claimed and climbed. Over to you ! Go digging the manure heap and spreading the dung. It’s good for growing vegetable food for Veggies and grass for the lazy gas belching graziers in the Cardiff Senedd.
You appear to want us to pursue a line of enquiry or criticism of said panto dame. If so you need to set the pot boiling by chucking some fuel into the mix. Maybe you have some evidence of a recent act, preferably one that causes offence. All we know is that she is well connected with a segment of our nation and some others from beyond our boundaries whose visions are not particularly beneficial to us the resident common herd. Too many of that ilk thriving right now and we’re paying for most of them in one way or another.
So Nicola Sturgeon has announced her resignation, bless her. For a long time she stood out as a passionate articulate and well briefed speaker who seemed very unlikely to put a foot wrong.
Why then did she give such prominence or priority to the flawed gender recognition campaign and its eventual piece of legislation? That issue could have been managed far better, or perhaps transitioned is a more appropriate term, leading to far less noise and hysteria and a more settled outcome to suit those genuine cases who need access to the reassignment processes.
This quagmire along with the closely related “Hate Crimes” nonsense indicates that some really toxic operators had got close to her and sabotaged her clarity and focus. Craig Murray today sounds like he’s dismissing her as an “agent of Unionism” but I don’t buy that. It is quite feasible that the UK security and disinformation machine got involved once they recognised the potential of the schisms to divert and destroy the independence efforts but the seeds of this tragedy can be found mostly within Scotland itself. Heaps of lessons for us in Wales but we’re already merrily on our way to an oblivion of our own making.
The argument needs to be made that when the SNP cock up like they have done, Scotland can kick them out. Arithmetic makes it impossible to do the same for whichever monstrous government England may impose on them, or us.
Nonce rights was a priority for the Scottish Greens. No co-operation, no majority, such was the deal. Nicola was felled by it, but the Greens are getting away lightly. Why is that? The GRRB was wholly unnecessary: the Gender Recognition Act 2004 already provides for ‘those genuine cases’ but wasn’t open enough to abuse.
For most people a ‘trans woman’ might be a man, perhaps an effeminate gay man, who has had surgery and now lives as a woman. And when they conduct their ‘surveys’ the zealots do nothing to dispel that illusion. There is no suggestion that a ‘trans man’ could be a man, and a rapist, who is playing a corrupted system to get near to women and girls.
It’s the same dishonesty with immigration. Women and children escaping the war in Ukraine are lumped together with able-bodied and undocumented young males from safe countries looking for easy money and easy sex. But the Left wants all to be classed as ‘refugees’.
There’s a ‘them’ who drinks in my local pub (a bloke who wears a dress, in the old money) who uses the women’s bogs. Apparently, when it takes his fancy, he sometimes uses the gent’s. In a place mainly frequented by adults that’s going to certainly raise some eyebrows but at a swimming baths or shopping centre? Egad!
Obviously most of these people aren’t rapists, but what about the other inevitable outcome of proffering these rights on them, in addition to the risks to women and girls? If these people feel it’s OK and they are emboldened to use women’s facilities, they are inevitably going to encounter violent opposition because of the outrage at the aforementioned risks, even if their intentions are not to cause harm.
New name for the Six Nations, with the Wales and Scotland national sides’ English Royal patronage and Brit militarist bollocks – Sandboxed, Sanctioned Nationalism ™️.
Completely off topic – spotted your tweet about shipping to Ukraine all those young men of fighting age that arrive in England daily in assorted craft. They obviously have an affinity for amphibious warfare and have passed the first test – getting across some tricky waters. Start by sending say a 1,000 per week to the Military and militia camps in Western Ukraine get them into infantry training, also identify the competent bomb makers among them as they can be put to build IED’s and similar for deployment when the expected second invasion comes soon. Anyone out there with similar ideas should e-mail Ben Wallace at MOD with a copy to Boris who will just love this kind of crap.
This exchange is running well. Keep at the main subject Bloggers. The “One Planet Brigade” are getting rattled. Well done Jac. Only when the comments eventually slow down, please all of you don’t forget to kick start it all again at the end, with a full exposure of Dame “PhD” Edna Mitty the godmother of “One Planet” and her bogus Science Doctorate and the Yale University Faculty and her book of exploitive book of ‘Manure’.
https://www.heames.ltd/single-post/response-to-time-to-call-in-the-opd-scam
Our response – HEAMES Architectural Design & Planning Consultants
Maybe Wade William Heames should campaign to get these slum hovels, masquerading as examples of carbon free living, situated in the Cotswolds and all the English National Park lands. I sure that ‘Bunter’ the Duke of Beaufort has a few spare hectares of Cotswold land spare for a few of his former hippy friends. Hard working real Farmers in Wales struggle to get planning permissions for homes for their own children on their land because the Wales Planning Inspectorate say the real farm does not need the whole help of a son or daughter.
Visit RightMove and you will see a smallholding for sale in Penybanc near Llandeilo 5 acres and a caravan for a bargain price of over 350k.. Yes those sons of the OPD soil did not make a living selling eggs and blueberries but they can flip it now for a huge profit and buy a small country cottage in Carmarthenshire
Can you be more exact, Gaynor?
You just need to look at the One Planet Council website or facebook page to understand the range of issues to do with OPD which are so unclear. For that reason alone it warrants a thorough and comprehensive review of every single aspect. Meanwhile the show rolls on and the performers themselves make up the content of each performance: Coming to a venue near you, and sooner than you think. Carmarthenshire put forward a motion for a review over two years years ago and has yet to receive an answer. And now Pembs County Council too – and yet official spokespeople from la grande dame Edna down to the lowest minion have nothing to say to critics about this ill-conceived, flawed, harmful and divisive policy. They only talk to their friends.For all others a wall of silence is the most effective weapon they can think of.
Are these “carbon free” slums required to comply with building regulations, including installation of fire sprinklers ?
Don’t think that’s even considered, Wynne. See the mangle of claim of “Passive Solar heating which for the cost of running a small sensor and fan to pump air through the ground” that exposes this fraud.
Passive construction in Wales is stuff like glazing, aspect, materials, insulation and temperature control skylights as new building design. Moderates in summer, conserves in winter. An external air source heat exchanger would be good but that’s about evens on energy consumed. Completely different from ground source heat pumps for seasonal variance which uses pumped fluid for thermal exchange, store in summer, extract in winter. The only application of ground source pumped AIR is places like arid parts of US, exchanging high day temperature and low night temperature, a daily heat exchange cycle. Great for deserts, which Preseli is not. Even the 30mile cave system of Ogof Ffynnon Ddu struggles to keep a constant 11 celsius as ground air flow temperature throughout the year.
Even the most ardent of proponents in these matters will see this venture is a complete pile of crock. Eco-schysting, and there may be some funny money involved.
I asked the question regarding fire sprinklers for OPD’s Brychan as – following protracted correspondence with Welsh Government in July 2019 – I received the response copied below.
Dear Mr Jones
If the OPD’s are new dwellings in accordance with Regulation 37A of the Building Regulations 2010 (which would be the decision of the local authority or private approved inspector on the assessment of the application submitted) they would be required to install automatic fire suppression systems.
Regards
Colin Blick
Building Standards Technical Manager
Building Regulations
Planning Directorate
Welsh Government
Rhydycar
Merthyr Tydfil
CF48 1UZ.
1 July 2019
Subject: Re: FW: Open Planet Developments [O P D] – Building Regulations 2010 [as amended]
To: Welsh Government – Building Standards Technical Manager – Colin Blick
Thank you for your email communication dated 1 July. Your observations are noted. However, it remains unclear whether dual standards now apply in Wales with regard to Building Regulations: a high standard for conventional new build and a lower standard for “One Planet Developments” [O P D s] . For the avoidance of doubt, can you please confirm whether new-build residential O P D s are required to install automatic fire suppression equipment [sprinklers] in accordance with Welsh Government circular WGC007/2016 issued 13 July 2016. You will appreciate that O P D s obtain potable and non-potable water supply from local streams not from the mains network owned and maintained by Dwr Cymru Welsh Water that would normally be used to service a “sprinkler” system. As there has been a spate of fires in O P D s in Wales [image attached] your further clarification would be appreciated.
Regards
No and that’s why the slum at Lamas, burned down. Used twin and earth, electrical wire, surface mounted, instead of armoured, fire retardant and set in trunking , that’s recommended. Especially of straw construction. They said, “the wiring was hot” the day before.
Was it a fraudulent claim? But went through because of the link to C4. The presenter is not qualified in building regulations.
I have two acres of gently sloping, south facing land on Ynys Môn. Get in touch if you’re interested as I could do with £200k
There is a lot about this which appears to be incorrect.
“For it attracts people into Wales who keep farting animals”
The future of farming is Vegan. HEAMES Architectural Design & Planning Consultants are promoting Stock Free (Vegan) Farming, with on-site solar / wind / hydro off-the-grid power generation. A far lower footprint than all OPDs in existence which tend to be on 6+ acre plots. As a vegan small scale organic farm this can be done on a 2 acre plot.
“drive old diesel vehicles, and have wood-burning stoves.”
The people we attract to our OPD Projects tend to be more in favour of electric vehicle use (which is now a requirement for every new house development to have a charger station).
With regards to your comments on wood burning stove use – we are promoting biogas production for cooking. It must be kept above 20 degrees at all times (within a greenhouse type structure would be ideal) and it can produce up to 6 hours of cooking gas per day. As well as the possibility for other uses.
We are also promoting Passive Solar heating which for the cost of running a small sensor and fan to pump air through the ground, the house is regulated all year round at the cost of pennies once setup. And even the setup costs are not that high if done in the way we are promoting.
“There was a Crowdfunder appeal in the name of The Edible Forest that claimed to have raised (or been promised) £650,000. But there’s no update after April 2019. Which I suppose might be explained by the appeal having reached its target.”
In 2019 I came up with the idea of combining 2 of my life goals (The Edible Forest and to create a Zero Waste Ecovillage – the moment I mentioned it, it went crazy. Thousands of people messaging. BBC wanting to do a TV Series on the development of the project and I was completely unprepared for the reaction). We spent a long whole year coming up with ideas of how this could work under an OPD Ecovillage proposal.
We decided on a 12 person management team, a 999 year lease on the plots and with this proposal we managed to find enough vegans to promise funds to the value of £580,000 with signed letters of intent. We then proceeded to submit an offer on 250 acres of low cost land (a recently restored open cast mine – our goal as a company being to purchase large areas of low quality agricultural land which is ripe for improvement). We had a meeting with the land owner but sadly our offer was not accepted. We did not proceed, no funds were paid in, and we wrote in to dissolve the company.
2022 we found a new location with a revised plan for Freehold plots. This has now proceeded with a purchase. The Edible Forest project has successfully progressed through the first major hurdle.
“But I still don’t understand why the name was being used to raise money before the company of that name was even formed. And why fundraising ceased before the company was formed.”
We only managed to raise around £350 through crowdfunding and used this to purchase historic apple and pear trees which will be planted out at The Edible Forest project at its new location.
My first attempt at setting up an Ecovillage was in 2010, it was called the ‘Eat for Free’ Project. I wanted to make it so that there was no funds required to take part. However we failed obviously in the part regarding funds to actually buy land. It took many years to form the ideas which have now worked!
“That seems to be a problem with Wade William Heames. Companies come and go, there’s a vagueness about what’s being purchased, we find multiple social media accounts, and commercial entities mentioned that seem devoid of corporate substance.
Such as . . .
A short-lived, one-man band, Food For Wales Ltd. Launched 12 May, 2020, Dissolved 18 October, 2022. What was its purpose? The SIC says, ‘Retail sale of fruit and vegetables in specialised stores’. So what happened?
There was also a Crowdfunder appeal for this company. Maybe it didn’t raise enough money?”
This appears to be more of a personal attack. Where you actually lack knowledge of what has happened, failed to ask me about it before writing this marvellous piece of text online.
Food for Wales Ltd – I had an agreement with a local farmer for use of his land for the production of organic plant food, to provide to local people. The agreement being rent free with 50% of the produce to be provided to the land owner.
There were a number of issues that arose with this having shovelled 70 tons of soil, shaped it into 15 market garden rows, and having spent around £800 on set up a gravity fed watering system. During those 6 hard months of labour it turned out that:-
1) the soil wasn’t organic as the farmer had promised. In fact this “30 year old organic soil” included 8 skip loads of rubbish, and insane levels of micro plastics. Contaminated soil.
2) the farmer was burying rubbish further up the farm, right next to the stream where I was collecting rainwater from for the proposed gravity fed watering sprinklers. Contamination likely.
3) the land owner started coming up with ideas of hiring people to make profits, which was not what I had agreed with him.
4) When requested the farm owner would not sign a written contract detailing our original agreement.
I walked away from this project with a great deal of experience setting up a hill-side market garden, with gravity fed water harvested sprinklers, and a valuable lesson to always have a written contract before you start putting a lot of hard work into anything.
“One, is for Jean Lamour Pest Control, another for Jean Lamour Environmental Services. Are these real companies, or just flights of fancy? There’s certainly nothing registered with Companies House under ‘Jean Lamour’.”
Before I went 100% raw vegan I was in the process of planning out these businesses. Never got round to actually going ahead with them as I turned vegan .
Your following comments from this one, again appear to be very much a personal attack.
“Another imaginary entity might be Unleash The Drones. What the hell is that about?”
Hehe. Proposed Drone Company to photograph local houses for sale. Very good idea but unfortunate the laws around drones were very strict at the time and micro drones were not about with 4k cameras back then. Far to strict for this business idea to proceed. However, had it done – 15 local properties photographed for £35 per, would have been a well-paid days’ work.
The one thing I’ll concede I may have overlooked is the vegan angle. So here’s an update.
You want to set up colonies in the Welsh countryside of people who nowadays force their lifestyle on others. These people will campaign against local livestock farmers. Giving us a scenario in which middle class English immigrants – which is what they’ll be – will be trying to put Welsh farmers out of business, and get Welsh families off the land.
In many instances they will be successful. Which will free up more Welsh land for more OPDs and more enviroshysters, and more rewilders. All of whom will expect ‘Welsh Government’ funding while Welsh people and their communities go without.
You want support for that!
You’ve had your say and I don’t have time for an unending exchange. So don’t bother carrying on.
“proposed gravity fed watering sprinklers”
Most people in the Preseli mountains call this rain. Supplemental irrigation in west Wales would only usually be needed inside polytunnels. Made of plastic.
“land owner started coming up with ideas of hiring people to make profits”
You only make profit after you’ve paid the employees. You are saying that your occupation of the land is intended not to involve local people in a rural economy.
“When requested the farm owner would not sign a written contract detailing our original agreement”
For an “Architecture and Design Consultant” you appear to be a very poor businessman. Now we are expected to take your word for what was or was not said.
“Before I went 100% raw vegan”
Stay off the local mushrooms, they are grown in bales of poultry manure. You should get a T shirt saying My Dinner in Winter is grown in Africa on a dollar a day”.
“having shovelled 70 tons of soil, shaped it into 15 market garden rows”
Did you consider Norfolk or Lincolnshire? There’s a reason why the soil and topography there is more suited to your endevours.
The crowd funding appeal launched from an address in Argyll Street, Abercynon was on the basis of a donation attracting “will name a tree after you” with a proposed woodland of named fruit trees in the Cynon Valley. There may been some good people of the fine valley who were duped into donating on that basis. Not for Polytunnels on the Preseli. They are owed a refund.
“the soil wasn’t organic as the farmer had promised”
For a landholding of this type to be classed as organic, a certification process, you (the proposer) need two years custodianship of annual crops, for that of a vegan variety, and it must be certified from start of custodianship by one of the eight organic control bodies. The process is not inherited or claimed chat in the pub or over the farm gate. I question your stewardship and professionalism.
I suspect there may be more to Mr Heames than meets the eye. Information is coming in.
Do without grants etc then and stand on your own two feet and self-fund. If you can’t, there is no purpose to you.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11689327/Couple-quit-jobs-live-grid-face-financial-ruin-neighbours.html
See also Daily Mirror Online and Irish Times Online. Believe what you will (caveat emptor).
They appear in this post. Scroll down to section ‘Beeview Farm’. They’ve been pissing off the neighbours since they arrived.
These ‘vets’ did not quit their jobs. They were STRUCK OFFf the practice register in Essex. Recommending vegan diet for cats which are obligate carnivores and proscribing ‘natural remedies’ for dogs with cancer. Suburban house re-possessed then arrived in Wales.
Vegan diet for cats! That’s where extremism takes you. Would appreciate links.
It’s in his own words, a book he published many years ago, includes his diary of a vet career and the demise thereof. This was during his eugenics phase.
https://www.nhbs.com/on-the-destiny-of-species-book
It is entitled “On the Destiny of Species By Means of Natural Selection, or the Elimination of Unfavoured Races in the Struggle for Life”. The Essex version of Mein Kampf prior to moving to Wales.
Bloody hell!
You appear surprised Jac.
The reality is that the political philosophy behind OPDs has it’s routes in lebensraum. Sponsored by the fake doctor who’s heritage is in colonial Africa and a real education in the private college at Malvern. The concept is that somehow the middle classes of suburban England have some kind of ‘entitlement’ to land in the country to live out some kind of idyllic lifestyle in a colonial reserve, land purchased by un-earned equity, subsidised by exemption from taxes and responsibility that rest on the shoulders of natives.
With it comes a form of social superiority and cultural displacement.
I understand the person who dreamt this policy up refuses point-blank to speak to any media about it when asked.
Who are you referring to?
I think “Nelson” is referring to Dame Edna Mitty ‘PhD’ who now lives at Llandudoch in a fancy smallholding off the West bank of the Teifi – which is actually opposite a grand private house on the Teifi’s East bank where the real Lord Nelson visited on one Welsh tour! Let everyone comment on ONE PLANETS first. No distractions from Jac’s latest brilliance. When they’ve all had their say, and the comments column here goes quiet, it should then be open to a string of questions on Dame ‘Dr’ Edna Mitty’s dubious Science Qualifications that she claims. Can anyone on planet Earth come forward who knows in which University Faculty Science Laboratory she did a few years serious scientific research to get her ‘PhD’ after inventing the concept of ONE PLANETS?
West Bank. How apt.
To the author of “Lessons From A Small Country” no less. The silent Jane Davidson.There should be a companion volume in preparation soon listing what those lessons from OPD in its current form actually are. Recent developments in North Pembs just last week would suggest that top of the list would be how to divide communities.
Do you have an update from Mynachlog-ddu?
How can i contact you to discuss this further?
editor@jacothenorth.net
Whilst I am in full agreement with the above 100%, the same needs to happen with genuine farmers, they are taking advantage of all this too, extra family homes (some of which belong on grand designs) workers accomadation, bunk houses, caravans, shepherds huts, camp sites, yurts etc etc etc, its becoming a crime to speak ot about farmers and I know I will be shot for this, but cant have one rule for one and one rule for another, the destruction of the Welsh countryside needs to stop full stop
You seem to be opposing farm diversification, without which many farmers would go out of business, freeing up more land for the kind of shysters I write about. While I’m opposed to excessive diversification, to the point where farming becomes secondary, I will never oppose Welsh families’ attempts to stay on their land.
OPD facilitates a tatty gentrification by mostly well funded people (trust funds etc) who like dressing down like hobos but don’t have to go without anything other than out of choice. This is just another aspect of the new style colonialism that has plagued us for last 40-50 years or more. Now it gathers momentum bringing the sick AngloAmerican globalist cultural norms to smother native traditions. Government loves it as it is yet another step in their assimilation/ obliteration strategy. Anglo whiteys and their multi racial Anglo speaking lackeys are here to snuff us out by hook or by crook.
Mike Parker lays into the whole good lifer influx in his brilliant book ‘Neighbours from Hell?’. He’s a hundred times the Welshman so many of our ‘own’ are.